Friday, November 23, 2007

I'M NOT ALONE AND MINE'S NOT THAT BAD

(Sorry the link is broken and I hid it so well. The son took his mother to the toilet 47 times in one night but what got to him in the finish was having her say her prayers every time he put her back to bed.)

I followed some of the other stories and comments. Most of the comments were supportive but there were also the usual "you ought to be grateful, think of what she gave up for you" people.

This doesn't wash with me. Children don't ask to be born. Adults decide to become parents but children don't say when asked, "I just can't wait to grow up and become a carer to my mother/father". It's a choice and a damned hard one to make and it shouldn't be expected of any child who can't handle it, whether the 'child' is 15 or 50.*** After the last post I asked my mother what age I was when I was taken to the hospital. It was just after my first birthday. My father was at the Repat hospital with TB and we were living with his aunt and family. I was taken in by ambulance but they refused to allow my mother to go with me. The family verbally abused her for allowing this and my great-uncle punched her, something I hadn't known until now. She was only 18, my father was dying and the doctor had told her that I would be dead if she didn't let me go and having nursed, she could see for herself that it was true. She remembered every detail of this trauma and then asked me what day it was.

9 comments:

You think you've got it bad. Imagine what it must be like for poor old Harry and Wills. They get abandoned by their mother after birth whilst she pursues a life of ski-ing and media-prostitution and then when she kicks the bucket they have to act all upset in case the prols rise up and destroy the monarchy.

Lol at Brian's comment. It took my sis in law twenty minutes to get her mother into the car the other day. Sis in law is not fit enough nor has the stamina for this. There is a crunch time approaching rapidly.

"The moment I lost it when caring for my mother came after she cried out for me to take her to the lavatory. For the 47th time. In one long, exhausting night. It wasn’t the fatigue of easing her from her bed, nor the slow walk to the bathroom, nor the awkwardness of positioning her, nor guiding her back to her bed. What made me crack was that I knew that she’d insist on reciting her long bedtime prayer – for the 47th time.